


people change

by fagstar



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nuclear Weapons, Platonic Relationships, Reconciliation, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29209251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fagstar/pseuds/fagstar
Summary: the ground under them rippled with the force of the explosion, snowflakes flying up as the vibrations disrupted their rest. tommy pressed himself, and niki, under him, into the snow as much as he could. he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself.__in which i fix what happened on january 20th
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Sam | Awesamdude & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 31
Kudos: 621
Collections: Cheshire's MCYT recs!, Completed stories I've read





	people change

**Author's Note:**

> take this fix-it. don't read any of this as ship. sorry if this is fucked up btw im on mobile

The sky was clear overhead, sun reflecting off the white snow as Tommy followed Niki through the forest. 

He didn't understand why she wanted him to follow her, but who was he to argue? They were just getting wood, no big deal. And anyways, she wasn't wrong when she said Tubbo probably wouldn't appreciate him taking all of Snowchester's wood barely a few weeks after it was founded.

It was cold, really, really cold, but the dense trees blocked most of the wind. Tommy stopped every so often to chop one or two of them down, much to Niki's annoyance.

Honestly, it was kind of nice to spend some time with her, even if she was acting kind of strange. But that was to be expected, they all had trauma. Tommy was pretty sure he acted differently than he did before his exile, before Wilbur's death - before everything, really.

Niki was nice. She was always kind, she was a great potions brewer and an even better baker. It always made Tommy happy to be around her; she had such great energy, and her near-constant happiness was infectious. 

Most of all, though, she cared. Like, really, truly cared. She was always willing to listen, lend a hand or a shoulder to cry on. Tommy thought he should try to reciprocate that more, but he hadn't had a chance to really speak with her before everything went to shit.

He turned to chop down another tree, making her stop again. She huffed in annoyance, swinging her leg and kicking loose snow around. The only sounds were their breathing and the thwack of Tommy's axe, and it felt nice. Peaceful.

Once he had the wood safely stowed away in his inventory, she jerked her head in the direction she was leading him impatiently. She started walking again, and Tommy groaned.

"Niki," he whined, drawing the last syllable out childishly. "Why can't we just chop down wood here? We've passed so many perfectly good trees, and it'll take so long to get back if we go much further."

"Come on, Tommy," she replied shortly. 

She turned, and Tommy frowned. Something seemed off with her. Tommy sighed, and continued to follow. 

The snow was deep and thick, and they moved slowly. Niki seemed agitated, checking her communicator impulsively every few minutes, tensing her jaw when she put it in her pocket. Her mitten-covered hands clenched into fists and unclenched nervously, and she looked around, eyes flicking jerkily.

Tommy thought he should bring it up, ask her if she was okay or something. He watched her closely, concerned, as they trudged through the forest. Every time he stopped to cut down a tree, she grew more and more jittery.

Eventually, Tommy began to speak to fill the suffocating silence. His voice was loud, and carried easily through the still air. It carried less when they came out of the forest, into a barren, windy tundra, so he raised his voice a bit. 

Usually, Niki would sigh and roll her eyes good-naturedly, her lips curling up into a small smile. She would laugh and jokingly tell him to hush. This time was not usually. This time, she just gritted her teeth and rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve the building tension in her muscles. She breathed through her nose, annoyed, and told him to shut up.

Something was definitely wrong. Tommy understood that she was going through something, as they all were, but for her to seriously tell him to shut up… that was basically unheard of. His brow furrowed and he opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, when she checked her communicator and cursed.

He was taken aback for a moment, but something caught his eye. Something was in the sky. It looked like… was that a fucking nuke?!

There was a nuke flying through the sky.

Tommy squinted his eyes as he watched it approach. It looked like, based on the trajectory, it would land relatively near them.

Near them. Tommy wasn't too concerned with himself, he'd resigned himself to the idea of dying relatively early on in his exile, but he wasn't alone.

Ahead of him, Niki stumbled back, wide-eyed. The nuke whistled as it grew closer to the ground, and Tommy ran. His arm shot out to grab Niki's wrist, pulling hard to get her in front of him and pushing her to the ground with his body as the nuke hit.

The ground under them rippled with the force of the explosion, snowflakes flying up as the vibrations disrupted their rest. Tommy pressed himself, and Niki, under him, into the snow as much as he could. He squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself.

After a few moments, the rumbling ceased, and Tommy deemed it safe to look up. Glancing around them, he took in the destruction.

Stones of all sizes were strewn across the snow, trees were fallen just metres from them. Behind them, a giant crater that would have taken their lives had they not started to run.

Suddenly, Tommy became aware of a sharp pain in his leg. He rolled off Niki to see a huge shard of rock embedded in his leg. She sat up as he cursed, watching him with wide, shocked eyes.

Tommy tore his eyes from his impalement to look over her. He scrambled to examine her feveredly, cupping her face and scanning her, hands reaching up to look through her hair.

"Are you okay?" he asked, voice high and fear-filled.

Her mouth opened wordlessly. Then, there were voices, coming from across the field. Her eyes flickered towards the two approaching figures, and his followed.

Tubbo stopped speaking as he noticed the two in the snow. His brow furrowed as he squinted at them, before breaking into a run.

"Tommy! Niki!" he screamed as he sprinted around the giant hole to them, Jack hurrying to follow.

He skidded in the snow as he stopped, and Tommy's eyes turned to rake over Niki again.

"What are you two doing here?" Tubbo asked, upset. His chest heaved as he stared at them.

Tommy ignored him. "Niki," he said seriously. "Are you hurt anywhere?" 

She shook her head and swallowed thickly. "No, Tommy, but look at your leg!" 

The snow was red under Tommy's impaled leg, staining his pants and shoe. He shifted it and hissed in a breath.

"And your back," Jack said from behind them.

Tubbo grimaced as he moved to look at Tommy's back. The back of his coat had been almost entirely burned away, skin red and bloody and burned, rock shrapnel embedded in it.

"Why were you two out here?" Tubbo asked again, near tears. 

Wincing at the movement, Tommy shrugged. "I needed to get wood for Sam Nook, Niki suggested that you might not appreciate me taking all of Snowchester's wood. I figured she was probably right, so we went out further to find some."

"I didn't know we were coming this far," Niki breathed. "I swear, I- I didn't know."

Tommy nodded. "It's fine, Niki," he said reassuringly.

Then, "Are you sure you're alright?"

Jack turned to her. "Yeah, how are you okay, when Tommy's got," he paused, gesturing to Tommy's injuries, "all that going on?"

"We saw the nuke coming, and Tommy grabbed my wrist and pushed me to the ground in front of him and laid on top of me," she replied, still dazed.

"Jesus," Jack breathed, rubbing his temples. 

"We should probably call Sam," Tubbo suggested. "He can heal you up, Tommy."

When Tommy nodded, he pulled out his communicator and sent Sam a message. Tommy relaxed slightly. He wasn't in too much pain, mostly running on adrenaline, but he knew he would be hurting lots later.

As they sat there, waiting for Sam, the cold began to sink in. It stung at the open wound that was his back, and he winced. Tubbo checked his communicator again, and then turned.

"Sam!" he called as the man approached.

Sam's hand flew up in the air as he jogged to them. "Hey," he greeted. "What do you-" he caught a glimpse of the red snow around Tommy. "Oh," he finished.

Tommy grinned weakly. "Hey there, big man."

Sam grimaced. "Hey Tommy," he said, kneeling down next to him. "Let's get you fixed up shall we? I can do your leg here, but we can do your back once we're in Snowchester. I'd like to use snow to ease the pain, but I don't think it'd be much help here."

Pulling things out of his inventory, he got to work. Tommy watched absently as Sam cut the lower leg of his pants away, and was pulled back to himself with a yell as Sam yanked the stone from his leg. 

Immediately, blood spurted out of the wound, dribbling down his leg and pooling on the red-saturated snow. Sam pressed a bandage to the wound with one hand and uncorked a regeneration potion with the other.

After a moment of keeping pressure, he removed the bandage and poured the potion onto the wound. Tommy gritted his teeth as skin and muscle began knitting themselves together. 

It took nearly the whole bottle to mostly fill the hole the rock left, and even then it wasn't fully done. Sam bandaged it tightly before scrubbing his hands with clean snow to remove the blood.

"That's all I can do for now," he remarked, gathering his items and standing. He extended a hand to Tommy. "Let's get you back to Snowchester and warmed up before I heal your back."

Tommy took his hand and Sam helped him to his feet. He stumbled a bit, groaning as he put weight on his injured leg, but Sam supported him.

They started off, Tubbo and Jack and Niki not far behind them. 

It was a long journey, slow-going and cold. Tommy, still supported by Sam, shivered violently as he staggered through the snow. About halfway back, the adrenaline began to fade, and he became unfortunately aware of the frozen, sharp waves of pain rolling across his exposed back.

As he began to sag with exhaustion, they were back. Sam helped Tommy up the stairs to Tubbo's empty home.

Once inside, Tubbo lit a fire while Sam instructed Jack and Niki to gather buckets of snow. As they did so, Tubbo cleared his kitchen table. Sam helped Tommy out of his ruined pants and into a pair of Tubbo's warm sweatpants.

After cutting off Tommy's half-charred jacket and shirt, Sam had him lay chest-down on the table. He pulled up a chair and began picking stone and grit out of Tommy's back. On the other side, Tubbo squeezed his hand and whispered reassurances.

Jack and Niki returned with two buckets each, heaping with fresh snow. 

("I was wrong, Jack. We were wrong," Niki had tearfully whispered to Jack as they scooped up snow. "He risked his life to protect me, his last life."

"That doesn't change anything. He's still...he's still bad." Jack had whispered back. 

Niki shook her head. "He's a kid, Jack. He shouldn't be ready to die so easily."

Jack stopped. "I…"

"I was angry," Niki continued. "About Wilbur. About L'manburg. And I blamed Tommy for it."

She swallowed. "I have two lives left. If he'd died, he would be gone. For good. But he still risked himself for me. And I think… he deserves a chance, Jack."

"Okay," Jack breathed heavily, pressing his palm to his forehead. "Okay."

And that was that.)

Tommy whimpered as Sam pulled the last few pieces of shrapnel from his burned back. He removed pieces of dead skin too, and then he laid out a clean piece of cloth over Tommy.

Niki sat by the fire, shivering as Tubbo and Sam heaped snow onto Tommy's back. They covered him with a thick layer. Then, Sam uncorked another regeneration potion and poured it over the snow, following it with a healing potion.

"The snow is to soothe the pain," he explained, "and to make the potions reach the injury slower. You know how bad it hurts to be healed all at once, this will make it better."

Tommy just nodded, eyes closed with exhaustion.

Tubbo stayed by Tommy's side while Sam washed his hands and joined Jack in comforting Niki by the fire.

The atmosphere grew warm and sleepy in the house. Tommy was asleep on the table, Tubbo holding his hand as he rested his head near his friend's. Niki dozed on Sam's shoulder, Jack struggling to keep his eyes open beside her.

Even Sam was tired, the urgency of the situation having drained most of his energy.

He stayed awake for a while, though. These kids needed him. And though it was stressful, and tiring, he would take care of them. 

Eventually, he succumbed to the exhaustion clawing at him, and leaned back against the couch, asleep.

In the morning, Tommy's back was healed, and they were well-rested. Niki and Tommy smiled at each other, any animosity that had existed between the two long-dissolved.

Neither Tubbo nor Sam knew what had changed, but this step was appreciated. It was good. Everything would be okay.

(Because if Niki had crept over to Tommy in the night, sitting by him, stroking his hair as they whispered hushed apologies and confessions and 'i love you'-s to each other, closing the bridge between them finally, no one needed to know.)

**Author's Note:**

> i hope u enjoyed! again dont read any of this as ship.. cant two homies say ily in peace? goddamn anyways pls leave comments <3 
> 
> im becoming a niki apologist bc i thought about it and shes also a traumatized kid like shes 18, dealing w the death of her best friend and destruction of her country after being oppressed by a tyrant ofc shes gonna lash out and be angry and make bad decisions... 
> 
> also um if u like warrior cats please message me on tumblr my url is fagstar and i need more ppl to talk to about warrior cats. if u do message me i want u to know im in love with u.


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